[SPN] feel the freedom like no tomorrow (4/7)
← two: try to praise the mutilated world ←
Three: Mendacious and delusive streets.
He's falling.
It's dark everywhere and he can't see, but he knows that he's falling. The wind howls in his ears, a phantom breeze rushing past him as he falls and falls and falls within the darkness. Even though he feels himself falling there's no way for him to see-there's no light, no shadow, no anything. There's only the sensation of him falling and falling and never stopping.
He tries to look at his hands, his legs, anything that would show his own form, but he can see nothing, can make out nothing. The ice-cold winds cut deep into him, slowly numbing away all sensation. A second, a minute, an hour passes, and soon he feels nothing at all even though he knows he should.
The darkness is the same behind his closed eyelids, but he can try to imagine otherwise and feel slightly comforted as a thought slowly comes to his mind.
Am I... Falling?
Is this what Falling felt like? To plunge down, never to stop and only keep on tumbling down to a certain end? It was so cold, so cold and painful and lonely and he was already so tired of it. The darkness overwhelms him, eating inside him relentlessly. He feels himself numbing over, both inside and out, barely noticing the wave of vertigo that washes over him before everything suddenly kick-starts itself and he feels himself Falling.
A surprised cry tears out from his throat as he Falls, the cold starting to cut into him once more as now he does feel the vertigo hitting him. His heart leaps up, threatening to jump out from his mouth as his senses lurch again and he can almost feel himself hitting the ground-
The world snaps back into light around him as Jimmy gasps and opens his eyes, an action he instantly regrets as the sunlight from above shines right into his eyes and Jimmy quickly shuts them back, feeling the corners starting to tear up. He feels something wet and moist under him, gentle pricks against his fingertips that easily give way as Jimmy clenches his fist to steady and then push himself back up. Jimmy quickly shakes away the mild sense of vertigo that washes over him momentarily, frowning as he lets his vision focus properly.
His vision slowly clears up, and Jimmy blinks as he makes out fields and trees and bushes, all of them clustering together in shades of greens and browns. Above him the sky is clear and bright, and in the distance he hears the sounds of children shouting and laughing. Jimmy slowly gets up on his feet, brushing off the soil and dirt that’s gotten onto his clothes-he realizes absently that he’s somehow in the old Castiel attire again-before he looks back up; the sound is louder now, closer, and Jimmy lets his curiosity lead him, following the noise. As he walks the scene starts to bring in more and more memories to him, a strong sense of déjà vu stirring within him as he approaches the source of the noise, and the feeling causes him to pause before a cluster of bushes, stopping as Jimmy wonders what exactly is going on right now.
“-I am not here to judge you, Dean.”
Jimmy instantly freezes, blood turning ice cold as the familiarity of that voice grips him tight. Without even thinking he goes through the bushes, bursting through it to nearly collide with the back of a bench-a bench that has Dean Winchester sitting on one end, and on the end of another bench sits Castiel. The old Castiel, the Castiel who had been living inside Jimmy’s body and still is, even until now. He remembers this moment as clear as day, the moment when Castiel had said something that Jimmy had not expected him to-something that just as it made Dean start to trust him, also made Jimmy begin to understand him properly.
(He also remembered how, one week later after a battle in Australia, he had asked Castiel if what he said to Dean was true. Castiel had hesitated, but in the end he had said the magic word. He had said ‘yes’, and from there his fate was sealed.)
The man stays silent as he watches the conversation play out between Dean and Castiel, watching the two speak; it’s certainly different, being able to see this from the outside rather than watching all of this through his own eyes. From here he can see the way Dean’s eyes occasionally flick towards Castiel, green eyes focusing on him as if the angel is a puzzle to try and solve, a mystery to figure out and disassemble. Dean Winchester is always good at reading people when he needs to, and Jimmy knows now that right here and now is when Dean finally figures that Castiel is somebody, a being who he can at least put his faith in, if necessary. This is where their tentative relationship had begun, and Jimmy had been the one and only witness to it.
He sees Castiel take in a breath, eyes closing momentarily before he opens them back and speaks again, voice quiet. “Can I tell you something if you promise not to tell another soul?”
Jimmy sees Dean’s visible hesitation, the uncertainty in his eyes, but he also sees the acceptance and the tentative trust that the hunter is willing to extend out to the angel, and so he agrees. “Okay,” he says, properly looking at Castiel now with his green eyes.
So Castiel tells him-tells them-that he’s not a hammer, that he’s not just a mere tool under Heaven’s command. He tells them about his worries and his insecurities, about the things he wishes Dean could understand just as much as he does himself. Jimmy sees the whirlwind of emotions that’s painted on Castiel’s face, and now he wonders just when it is that the angel truly did start to care so much for Dean. Did the moment happen now, or at the beginning, or later? Maybe he might never really know the answer.
He watches the way Dean stares at the spot where Castiel had just been moments earlier and sees the sympathetic expression that’s on Dean’s face, only slightly lessened by the worrying frown crossing his face. The children continue to play and shout in the playground, oblivious as to what had just happened, and unknowing of how their lives had just been saved the night before, only to place them ever closer towards the end; an end that somehow never happened. But in its place, perhaps something far worse had happened.
Something that I don’t even know how to handle, Jimmy thinks grimly to himself as Dean stands up from his seat at the bench and starts to walk away. He watches the hunter leaving, eyes trailing after the other only to blink in surprise when suddenly the figure of Dean starts to fade without warning, growing blurry around the edges. Alarmed with this unexpected development, the man starts to chase after the disappearing hunter, the call coming out from his throat before he can help himself. “Dean-”
“-Dean.”
Jimmy stumbles on his feet, just barely managing to keep his balance at the sound of Castiel’s voice now suddenly coming from behind him. He stops and whirls around, eyes growing wide as now he sees the angel standing behind him. The sky itself suddenly has suddenly shifted from mid-morning to nightfall, and Jimmy hears the sound of crickets and flickering lights around him. The entire place has changed without warning, and as Jimmy darts his eyes around he feels yet another sense of déjà vu coming to him; he’s pretty certain that he’s been here, too.
There’s the sound of somebody moving from behind him now, and it clicks properly in Jimmy’s brain when he hears Dean’s half-snarl from behind, the impatience and rage of his voice bleeding through the single word he snaps out at the angel. “What?!”
Jimmy only gives himself a moment to glance towards Dean and then back at Castiel, who grants the hunter with a sideways look and explains himself cautiously. “You must understand why I can’t intercede. Prophets are very special; they’re protected.”
This had been the moment, Jimmy knew. This had been the moment when Castiel made his first decision to side with humanity and with Dean-a decision that had later caused him to be hunted down by the forces of Heaven. Or perhaps, this had been the moment when Castiel let himself choose, to make that decision to stick with humanity even though Heaven had no desire for humans to live on. This, in a sense, could be called the first real building block in the relationship between Castiel and Dean, the angel of Thursday and the Righteous Man.
The words between Castiel and Dean wash over Jimmy as the conversation plays out just as Jimmy remembers-he also remembers how, as Dean runs off to find Chuck Shurley and drag him over to where Sam is confronting Lilith, he had remarked to Castiel how Heaven would not like this. In response, Castiel only shrugs and repeats to him what the angel had told Dean. The thought makes Jimmy smile, just a bit; those had been some of the better days, before everything had crashed into a downward spiral.
As Dean vanishes into the distance so does the world itself as well, everything in his sight blurring and fading into darkness. The reprieve, however, is momentary at best, and everything around him starts to rumble and shake, wood and metal and everything clanking and banging into each other before suddenly his vision is filled with blinding white light as the high-pitched cry of an angel roars in his ears.
No, not an angel.
An archangel.
Jimmy raises his head, squinting through the growing light as he hears Castiel’s voice shouting next to him. “I’ll hold him off! I’ll hold them all off! Just stop Sam!” There’s only the fraction of a second where Jimmy manages to make out Dean standing at Castiel’s side before the angel claps him on the shoulder and the human vanishes, having sent him off to the covenant where Sam would be.
This had been his last moments-their last moments-the point when Castiel had fully made his decision to protect humanity and stick to it. For that decision they had died and perished, killed by the wrathful might of Raphael. In the seconds before they died, Castiel apologized to him for putting him through this, and Jimmy remembers very well what his answer had been. It was fun while it lasted.
Raphael’s voice nearly rises to unbearable levels as the light intensifies, blocking out everything in a brilliant white for a few moments before everything abruptly blacks out once more, darkness rushing back in from everywhere. Raphael’s cry cuts out without warning, leaving nothing but echoes of it ringing in his ears as silence settles around him. It’s quiet; too quiet, even, and Jimmy feels his heart beating none-too-gently in his chest, still trying to calm down after all the things that he’s seen. The air around him feels cold, colder as the moments pass, goosebumps already starting to rise on his skin even though he’s wearing the overcoat.
Jimmy raises his hands the best that he can and breathes into them, letting the hot burst of air warm his quickly numbing fingertips. It helps somewhat, although the cold does not stop and slowly Jimmy starts to see the wisps of his own breath, highlighted by the dim light that’s gradually filling in his vision. Jimmy drops his hands and blinks as the world reshapes itself around him, lights growing before they suddenly start to flicker and Jimmy now sees flashes of stained, half-smashed walls lining the murky, dusty corridor that he’s standing in. An acrid smell wafts into his nose, the scent making his eyes instantly water up as Jimmy winces and proceeds to pinch his nose to block out the smell the best he can and then glances around him. The walls are bare except for the jet-black stains that splash across the surface, and in other parts chunks of concrete seem to have been ripped out forcefully; above him lamps dangle and flicker dangerously, giving Jimmy just enough light to make out the shape of a door at the other end of the corridor.
Jimmy doesn’t really know what’s going on, but at the very least, the direction in which he needs to go in is clear. Jimmy holds his nose, making it a point to breathe through his mouth as he starts to walk, his shoes pounding loudly against the floor below him and the sound echoes in his ears. The lights continue to flicker, electricity buzzing constantly in the air as the bulbs swing around dangerously. Jimmy can’t help but feel a sense of dread swelling up within him with every step he takes closer towards the door at the end; he doesn’t even know where he is or how he exactly got here (considering the fact that Gabriel killed him). Still, if anything, there’s a high chance that Castiel-or the fake Castiel-is somehow involved in this, and since he’s here he might as well figure out what’s going on.
The smell lessens as he approaches the door, and it soon becomes bearable enough that Jimmy can drop his hand down and resume walking normally. Under the weak lighting Jimmy slowly makes out the form and shape of the door he’s walking towards; they’re double oaken doors-a strange sight, considering where he is-but they’re half-rotten and old, and there are gaping patches across the surface where the wood has been half-eaten. Similar black stains like the ones on the wall are smudged across some of the other uneaten parts of the door, and the black liquid still gleams when Jimmy leans in to examine it, looking as if it’s been freshly slapped on.
Leaning away, Jimmy slowly tilts his head to look at the strange black liquid; his eyes narrow as Jimmy cautiously examines it. It’s certainly quite unlike anything he’s ever known, and he can’t help be curious about it now that he’s seen it everywhere. The man slowly raises a hand, reaching out carefully with one finger in order to swipe a bit of it away from the door-
He stops when the sudden sound of shuffling feet come from the other side of the door, and in a moment of impulse Jimmy instantly shifts his hands to reach for the door handles instead, yanking at them to pull the doors wide open. He blinks when a rush of wind comes out to breeze across him, and in the next moment he hears a surprised voice addressing him-a voice that Jimmy knows well, even if the other person doesn’t.
“…Cas?”
Jimmy opens back his eyes, blinking as his eyes slowly adjust to the sight of the Green Room before him and the occupant inside-the occupant who is none other than Dean Winchester himself.
Dean narrows his green eyes after a moment of staring at Jimmy, realization clicking on his face as the hunter blinks and corrects himself. “Jimmy?”
“Yeah,” the man responds with a tentative smile, glad for the fact that he’s no longer alone in this wacky place-even if Dean’s sudden appearance here is a cause for concern. He glances around the room, recalling it from his memory along with the details that he notes before he looks back at the other. “What are you doing here?”
For some reason, the question makes Dean make a grimace and look vaguely uncomfortable. “Well, after Gabriel did his crazy thing and killed you-”
“I noticed,” Jimmy mutters out in a dark undertone.
Dean, at least, has the decency to pause and give Jimmy a sympathetic look there and then before continuing calmly. “You entered Cas through your soul or something, I think. Since you’re pretty much out of your body, you’re kind of technically dead one way or another.” There’s a pause, and then Dean snorts. “God knows how many times I’ve gone through it.”
“I have no idea if that is supposed to be reassuring in any matter,” Jimmy deadpans back flatly, and somehow his response only serves to make Dean stop for a moment and blink, surprise flashing on his face for a split second before mild amusement replaces it.
“Huh,” he starts, and the corners of his lip curl up slightly. “Now I know where Cas gets his sarcasm from.”
Jimmy rolls his eyes in return. “You still haven’t answered my question.”
“I’m getting there,” Dean retorts back, pushing himself off the chair he’d been sitting on ever since Jimmy had entered the room. “Currently you and Cas're pinned down with Gabriel's sword in the middle of the panic room. You being inside Cas now is like... the medicine or something putting the souls to a halt, so the Cas outside can't do anything while you're in here.” The hunter pauses then, thinking for a moment and frowning as he searches for the appropriate words to say with. “We gotta move fast, though; there's only so long your presence stops them, and when they start to fight back it’s not going to be easy getting out.”
Jimmy nods, acknowledging Dean's words and his highlight about the severity of the situation, but there is one thing that keeps sticking out at him. He turns to the other with a curious look, echoing pointedly. “We?”
Dean stares back. “Yeah,” he answers, sounding highly certain and wholly immovable. “We.”
Jimmy gulps, and stares in return as well. His heart is pounding again, beating dread and uncertainty into his blood. “What did you do, Dean?” he finally makes himself ask, even though a part of him doesn't want to hear the answer. If Gabriel had needed to kill him for this to happen, then Dean-
The hunter rolls his shoulders in a shrug. “Nothing big,” he replies nonchalantly. “I'm currently knocked out on the sofa, I think. Gabriel pulled some mojo on me or something to get me in here after I asked him to.”
“Gabriel-” Jimmy starts, stops, and then composes himself before starting again. “-but why?”
Dean only snorts out loud in response. “Somebody's gotta have your back, right? Going up against all the souls of Purgatory isn’t exactly a cakewalk, Jimmy.”
“I know,” he replies quietly. How could he not know? In the year he had with Castiel he has seen more than enough of the dark side of the world. Shapeshifters and vampires and werewolves and ghouls-a whole new world of monsters and beasts all laid out before his eyes. And now all these things were here, gathered together through death and ready to bare their fangs and claws to the world once more-and Jimmy now stands as the only thing between them and the outside. Hardly the most comforting thought in the world at all.
The hunter gives Jimmy a brief moment to reflect on his thoughts before he speaks again, this time in a way that's much more thoughtful. “Gabriel said that it was a good idea for me to come in here, anyway. I could make sure you're safe, and I can get to Cas too since I have, uh-” Dean pauses and hesitates, a strange gesture coming from the man. Jimmy, however, just waits patiently as Dean recollects himself and starts again. “I've got some... connection, I guess. Gabriel didn't really explain it to me.”
It doesn't take long for Jimmy to put two and two together though. “When Castiel pulled you out from Hell,” he says, gesturing towards the shoulder where he knew the seared hand print lay under the cloth. “He touched your soul with his Grace, and it left a mark. That mark links you two together.”
Jimmy's words make Dean pause, the hunter staring at him for a few moments before he makes a grunt and turns away. “Should've figured that you would know,” he mutters out, just loud enough so that Jimmy can hear it. Dean inclines his head slightly and adds on. “Did Cas tell you that?”
The man shakes his head. “Not really,” he admits, voice soft. “It's just... there.” Jimmy pauses then, the corner of his lips curling up slight before continuing. “Not hard to feel it when you're with an angel.”
Dean doesn't say anything to response, quickly turning his head away instead and finishes up quickly. “Yeah, so. To quote Cas, we've got a 'profound bond', and I used that to get in here. Although I got stuck inside here until you came along.” He stops to let out a sharp laugh, bitter and dark and dry. “Some help I am.”
“I appreciate it,” Jimmy quickly says, and it is true-Dean being around does help, and it makes Jimmy feel better; the hunter's experience and knowledge will play a good part in aiding Jimmy, and considering the odds now stacked against them, Jimmy knows that they're going to need all the help he can get. It's two of them against the entirety of Purgatory now, and there's no way something like this is going to be easy.
Dean glances towards the door now, eyes and expression hardening as he clenches his jaw and gazes at whatever would lie beyond the double oaken doors that stand before the two of them. “Alright,” he starts, letting out a breath through his nose. “Let's go.”
The doors open back to the corridor that Jimmy had been in earlier, except now there's now a door at the other end of the hallway and there are also grills lining at the top and Jimmy can see moonlight streaming in through the bars and making the place just a bit brighter.
Dean steps up from behind him, green eyes blinking as the hunter focuses on their new-old surroundings. “Nice place,” he remarks not too dryly, a grim smile etched onto his features. “You know the way?”
“There's only one way,” Jimmy points back out quickly and proceeds to start walking, not even bothering to wait for whatever Dean's response is. A few moments pass before another set of footsteps join his, and at the corner of his eye he sees the hunter walking beside him. The look on Dean's face is not exactly comforting, but the determination is something of a promise, perhaps, a desire to go forward and do what he intends to do here. What they both intend to accomplish.
The two of them walk in silence until they reach the door on the end. It’s a simple door this time, carved out of metal that's now rusty and old, stained with patches of black. Like before, the black stains shine unnaturally, gleaming oddly under the lights as Dean and Jimmy come close to it. They pause before the door, staring at it for a few moments before Jimmy slowly starts to reach out for the handle.
“Whoa, hold on there,” Dean cuts in suddenly, grabbing Jimmy’s wrist to stop him from reaching the door. Annoyed, Jimmy turns towards Dean with every intention to voice out his irritation, but stops when he sees the concerned look that’s smacked across the hunter’s face. Jimmy remains silent, frowning slightly as he watches Dean glance at the door for a moment and worries his bottom lip rather thoroughly. “You’re just going to open it?” he finally asks, and it’s hard to not hear the concern in his voice.
Jimmy turns back to the door and looks at it himself for a second before using his other hand to reach for the handle. “Not much else we can do at this point,” he states plainly, and proceeds to wrap his fingers around the handle before pulling the door open. Dean makes a sound and drops Jimmy’s wrist, stepping back as Jimmy yanks the door open with a torturous squeal of old metal hinges. Both men hold their breath as light rushes into the confines of the room, revealing a set of stairs that look as if they had been carved out of stone.
Dean lets out the breath he had been holding, giving the stairs a look and then directing his gaze towards Jimmy, who looks back at him. “Time to go up, I guess.”
Jimmy puts on a grim smile and turns back to the stairs that greet him in the room, looking at it himself before he sighs out loud and nods in agreement. “Let’s see where they lead to.”
“I’ll take the lead,” the hunter quickly says once their decision’s been made, brushing past Jimmy before the man can say otherwise and starting his way up the stairs. Without wasting another moment Jimmy swiftly follows behind, leaving the corridor behind him as he steps into the room and up the stairs, shoes clicking against the stone surface. The two of them take a few steps up before the squeal of metal suddenly cries out behind them, and they turn around just in time to see the metal door slamming shut, booming with a resounding silence.
Jimmy turns back to Dean, whose gaze is still fixed onto the now-closed metal door. A moment passes, and then two, and Dean’s flying down the stairs and grabbing the handle, cursing loudly as it refuses to budge under his strength.
“Son of a bitch,” he snarls out, turning back to Jimmy and scowling at him. “What’re you waiting for? Come down and help me here, damnit!”
Dean’s shout snaps him back into reality, and Jimmy gives a quick nod before he goes back to the door and attempts to help the hunter open the door. Just as he had suspected though, the door stays shut, unyielding. After about a minute or so of attempting to open it Dean has to concede defeat-although he does it most unwillingly, snarling again as he gives it a not-too gentle kick that causes the entire door to vibrate.
“Fuck,” he swears once more, glaring harshly. Jimmy absently notices that his fists have clenched up, although Dean soon relaxes them and sucks in a breath to calm himself down. The hunter opens his eyes and turns to the stairs, Jimmy following his gaze as the two of them look up and up at the seemingly never-ending flight of stairs that now stands before them, stretching onwards to something almost like eternity.
The hunter lets out another sigh. “One way ride,” he mutters to himself, starting to move again after that. Without much of a choice in the matter Jimmy follows right behind, the sounds of their pounding feet and breathing being the only thing that breaks through the silence.
Time passes by as they climb, although Jimmy has no idea how long it has been since they’ve started to climb up the staircase. It could have been just seconds or minutes or perhaps hours had already passed, but there is no way of really telling. The moments tick by unnoticed, time itself seeming to drag on and on as the two of them push their way up the stairs with no end in sight. They don’t seem to be able to get closer to the top at all, and the bottom is nothing but a black void, so high up they are now.
For all the stamina that Dean has even the hunter needs to stop eventually, chest heaving as he struggles to get his breath back. Jimmy has to stop himself from collapsing onto the ground, utterly tired and exhausted from all of the climbing that they had done in the last only God knew how long time they had. He manages to settle on doubling over and rests his palms on one of the upper steps before him, kneeling down as Jimmy tries to collect himself back together. Too much. This was seriously too much, and Jimmy didn’t know if he could even take any more.
Dean manages to recover quickly, however, and Jimmy hears the hunter’s breaths soon slowing down into something manageable. Footsteps come down towards him after a pause, and then there’s a hand roughly grabbing him around his bicep and before Jimmy can register anything else, Dean’s hauling him up and tugs one arm over his shoulder, holding him in place by the wrist as the hunter’s other arm slips around his waist and supports him from there.
“No stopping here, Jimmy,” he hears Dean wheeze out beside him, words forced out in-between breathless pants as the man straightens himself properly. “I know we’re almost there.”
Jimmy can only make himself nod and attempt to steady himself better despite wobbly knees, still panting harshly as sweat drips off his chin and from the tip of his nose. They splash down onto the steps as Dean starts to move again, shouldering Jimmy along with him as the two men continue to push their way up the steps, going up foot by foot slowly and carefully. They are closer now, Jimmy realizes; the light is now brighter, closer to them, and the darkness slowly disappears as the light swallows up the shadows behind them.
The light seems to close in on them with each step they take, blotting out the shadows and filling everything in their senses with light. Jimmy can’t help but shut his eyes as they take the last few steps up the staircase, climbing right into the light and feeling an intense heat burning all around him like a feverish heat. He hears Dean’s own gasp beside him, surprised and taken aback, and then he hears and feels the displacement of air before the light fades out against his eyelids. After that, Jimmy hears nothing else but silence.
There’s a beat, and then two.
“What the hell,” Dean’s voice suddenly breathes out in disbelief beside him, and Jimmy finally allows himself to open his eyes and stare at the sight before him.
It was-Jimmy didn’t know what to say, actually, if only because there was nothing he could say to what now stretched before his eyes. Around them giant cliffs stretch without end, encircling their surroundings and beyond and holding it all like the palm of a hand. Tufts of mist rolls across the surface, running from the stone platform they are standing on and flowing everywhere, coating the entire place like a cool, mystical blanket. In the distance Jimmy sees a giant lake that glitters unnaturally, pillars of ice rising up from the surface and connecting the land to the twilight skies that span above them that are stained with patches of varying colours that shift in every angle, almost like an oil slick. In the absolute centre of his vision, a blank, white circle stands there, darkness and shadow oozing from the edges.
Jimmy stares at the sky for a moment more before he brings his gaze down, looking below the platform that he and Dean are standing on to see the ground spreading out below them. He sees reds and oranges and browns burning into his eyes, the land below them glowing as if it’s on fire. Mist surrounds the edge where the land edges at the cliff bases, flowing around like a river that never stops or fades.
Beside him Dean sucks in a deep breath and proceeds to let it out, green eyes still transfixed onto the place that rolls out before their eyes, a strange sort of deadly beauty which now stands before them. The land continues to glow uneasily below them, while the skies above them flash and rumble as the roar of thunder and lightning echoes from the distance, the sound prompting Dean right back into reality.
“Right,” he starts, breathing loudly again, and swivelling his gaze towards Jimmy. “You feeling any better now?”
Jimmy gives himself a few seconds to figure out his own stamina and condition before he nods an affirmation. “As well as I can be,” he croaks back, voice somewhat dry; he’s lost a ton of water in his system from all the sweat that’s pouring out from him. “Having some water would be great, though.”
Dean only rolls his eyes. “You’re a soul, dude,” he intones back pointedly. “You don’t need anything.”
“It’d still be nice,” Jimmy retorts back, although his face heats up momentarily due to embarrassment. Of course he’s a soul-how could he forget? The man silently rebukes himself for his forgetfulness while he pulls himself away from Dean, steadying on his own two feet once more and casting a glance at the scenery that stretches out before them, strange and magical and utterly unnatural. It’s hard to believe that this is all inside Castiel, to be honest.
Dean rolls his shoulders and squints towards the strange blank circle at the middle of the sky, trying to take a gander at it. “I don’t know what the hell’s up with this place, but I’m going to bet that Cas is somewhere in here.” Dean says that with conviction and with absolutely certainty, and Jimmy wonders for a moment if the hunter’s words are meant for him or for himself instead. It almost feels that way to him.
“Well,” Jimmy starts as he walks cautiously. “First thing we need to do is to get down from here.” He stops at the edge of the platform, making sure that his feet aren’t too close to the ends as he cranes his head forward and looks down. They’re high up, way high up, and there’s no way for them to go down besides the stairs they came up from-and Jimmy’s pretty sure that really isn’t going to work.
The hunter follows him from behind, although unlike Jimmy he doesn’t really dare to look down and seems to turn slightly green instead. “I hate this,” he hears the other man muttering. “Why are we so friggin’ high up anyway?”
Jimmy turns his gaze away from the ground to glance back at Dean. “I’d like to know that myself,” he states back in turn, walking away from the edge and looks around him. The platform that they’re standing on is a simple affair, as far as Jimmy can tell-it’s a circular one, with the edges worn with age and looking rather slippery as well. On the surface of the platform a messy scrawl stretches across in jet black, spreading around like a crackling spider web. It’s almost gibberish to Jimmy, to be honest, up until he notices one of the scrawls and the image clicks in his mind.
“Dean,” he starts, ensuring that he has the hunter’s attention as he gestures towards the symbol he recognized. “I think these are in Enochian.”
Dean’s eyes instantly widen at the words. “Son of a bitch,” he swears out loud, green eyes now darting across all the Enochian symbols that dot across the surface. “Sam would be really helpful here right now. I’m not good at remembering this shit.”
“I can make out some of them,” Jimmy offers helpfully as he looks at the symbol he’s just pointed to and translates it. “That one means ‘here’, I think.”
Dean nods in acknowledgement, eyes roving across the symbols still as he tries to match each one with what he can recall. “This one’s ‘stand’-”
“’Ruler’, here,” Jimmy quickly points out the next one he manages to figure out.
Time passes as the two men attempt to decode every one of the symbols they can make out, piecing the letters and words together bit by bit. At times Jimmy has to pause and rack his brain for whatever he recalls from his year with Castiel, and likewise Dean attempts to remember whatever he’s managed to memorize from the books he’s pursued. There’s no telling how long it takes for them to finally translate everything, but once they done Jimmy strings the words together, and he feels dread opening up in his stomach as he says it aloud. “Here stands the throne of the Leviathans, the first beast before man and angel, the ruler of Purgatory.”
Dean sucks in a breath once more, and a very worried expression appears on his face which the hunter fails to hide properly. “Shit,” he swears, and Jimmy can very well emphasize with that remark. The first beast before man and angel-what chance did Castiel have against something as powerful as that? Time now ran all the shorter, and more than ever it was imperative that they had to find the angel.
Still, horrifying discovery aside, there is still the matter at hand-going down the throne. “Now what do we do?”
The hunter grimaces. “Beats me,” he mutters darkly, giving the Enochian script at their feet a stern glare. “I’d been hoping that we’d figure out a way with this, but-”
Dean cuts himself short abruptly and ducks to the side, just in time before a fireball hurls past where the man had been seconds ago. Jimmy stumbles back in surprise, eyes wide as he feet remain rooted to the ground out of shock. Dean curses loudly again, darting towards Jimmy and pulls him to the ground just as another fireball flies over their heads. The heat of the fireball is so close that Jimmy swears he can feel his scalp starting to burn.
“I don’t think I need to tell you this, but we’ve got company,” Dean says as Jimmy sees the silhouettes of a single, massively winged creature heading towards them, tiny flickers of gold and orange visible from its mouth that soon become larger as the dragon throws yet another fireball towards them. Both Dean and Jimmy manage to evade that just in time, although the hunter’s now swearing up a storm as the dragon fly closer towards where they are.
“Fuck,” he curses, snarling through his teeth. “How the fuck are we supposed to defend ourselves against a dragon? These fuckers are hard enough out there, much less here.”
Jimmy tries to calm himself down, looking at the dragon and then glancing at the platform they’re on. “It shouldn’t be able to land where we are,” he attempts to hazard a guess. “There’s not enough space.”
“It can turn human,” Dean says in return, lips pursed as his eyes narrow. “That doesn’t make things any easier, though. It still breathes fire and shit.”
Not comforting at all. The sound of the dragon’s wing beats were audible now, starting to thunder in his ears as the beast approaches ever closer to the platform. He looks around, trying to find something-anything-that could help them in this situation, but aside from the Enochian emblazoned onto the platform the place’s as clean as a whistle. There wasn’t anything at all that could help them.
Dean curses loudly again before he reaches for Jimmy, grabbing him and dragging the man away as the two men throw themselves to the side as the dragon make a diving swoop, talons stretching out in a bid to grab hold of either of them. Jimmy couldn’t help but stare a bit as the dragon flew past them, its deadly beauty truly a sight to behold. Its scales burned just like fire itself, eternally blazing and shifting as the beast roared and twist around, the red-orange-yellow-gold shifting along with its actions. Its eyes flared a fiery red, glowing as hot as heated metal as a stream of smoke puffed out from its nostrils.
Trespassers, Jimmy hears the fierce, dangerous mental snarl resounding in his head, and Dean barely has a moment to react to that before the dragon speaks again. How dare you stand upon the throne of the first beasts?
“You mean the Leviathans?” Jimmy asks before Dean can say anything in response, even though he senses the hunter glaring at him sharply since he is, well, talking to a dragon. Jimmy thinks he’s pretty dumb for doing this too, but he doesn’t exactly have any other choice in the matter at the moment. It’s either this or being eaten, and Jimmy would rather pick the option that has him staying alive.
The dragon seems to look vaguely unimpressed by the question, but it snorts again and responds-this time with not as much hostility. Yes.
Unfortunately, this time Dean manages to speak up before Jimmy can cut in. “What problem do you have, anyway? Couldn’t you just talk to us first before tossing flaming giant fireballs at us?”
Jimmy winces a little at the lack of tact coming from the hunter, but somehow the beast only makes an amused sort of snort and answers Dean’s question. Nobody has ever stepped foot upon the Leviathans’ throne before, not until now. They are the first beasts, the rulers of Purgatory. A pause, and then the dragon add on almost silently. Tyrannical rulers.
Both Jimmy and Dean’s eyebrows rise then, and the two men glance at each other for a moment in silent understanding. Jimmy is the one who asks the question. “What do you mean by that?”
The Leviathans were cast into this place by their creator, the same creator who made Purgatory as it is, the dragon starts to explain, the silence in between its words broken only by the beating of its giant wings. They were once locked and sealed up in Purgatory, never to be touched by man, angel or beast. But when the door to Purgatory was forced open, the chaos allowed the Leviathans to escape. Right here the dragon snorts loudly, shaking its head in a very human-like manner. Now in here they rule over us all and oppressing us under their claws while they control the one who had taken all of us in, shaping this reality to their means.
Realization clicks in both men there and then. “They’ve got Cas,” he hears Dean mutter out beside him, and it’s impossible to ignore the flare of something that swells with Dean’s words.
The dragon blinks once. The angel of Thursday, Castiel, it confirms, and now a curious look crosses its eyes as the dragon looks between the two humans. Both of you have been touched by the angel.
“Long story,” Dean quickly says in return.
Jimmy decides it’s most likely time to change the topic of this impromptu talk. “We’ve heard that Castiel is still around. Can you take us to him?” he asks.
There’s a pause as the dragon looks between the two humans once more. What are your intentions? It eventually asks after a few moments.
Best to just give the truth and make things easier for all of them. “We want to take him out and banish the remaining souls back into Purgatory,” Jimmy replies, honest and straightforward and pointedly ignoring Dean’s dark murmur of ‘nice going there’.
The dragon blinks once at the answer before it inclines its head and gazes at Jimmy directly. How will you contain the angel? Without the vessel, the angel is but insubstantial Grace that humans cannot touch.
“I’ll take him into me,” Jimmy blurts out the answer before he can take it back, and even Dean has to pause when he hears the words coming out. Likewise, the dragon seems to be just about as surprised at the hunter himself is, but Jimmy pushes on before either of them can say anything to intercept him. “I’m his original vessel, and I’m saturated with his Grace, or something. If anybody can take him back, it’s me.”
“Jimmy-” Dean starts warningly, but the dragon cuts in from there.
You make a valid point, it replies simply, giant tail swishing casually behind. Another moment passes, and then: And you are certain you will return all of us back to Purgatory?
He nods, answering without fail. “Yes.”
The dragon nods back, seemingly satisfied with the answer. Then I will bring you to where the Leviathans stand now, it says, and then it twists itself around so that the dragon now presents its back to them where vicious spikes burst out from various points along its spine. Both Dean and Jimmy step back as the dragon slowly hovers itself to the edge of the platform, close enough so that the two men can climb onto its back. Climb on; I will fly you there, and the ground is a long way down.
Jimmy doesn’t hesitate and starts making his way towards the dragon. Dean, on the other hand, hardly looks convinced and pointedly crosses his arms across his chest, scowling. “How do we even know if we can trust you? You seem awfully willing to go against your boss.”
The dragon twists its elongated neck around so that it can properly face the hunter. Before the Leviathans took over there was the Mother, and it was the Mother who we loved and cherished, not the first beasts. She was the one who took care of us and protected us, not the first beasts. They only know how to crush and to eat, and not to care. All of us have suffered under their power. It’s eyes flare, and the beast adds darkly. Though the Mother is gone, we will not submit ourselves to a callous ruler like the Leviathans, even though they are indestructible; to do so would be an insult to the Mother’s memory.
“So it’s like a mutiny, huh,” Dean mutters back, sounding just a little impressed-but not convinced. The hunter eyes the dragon cautiously, attempting to figure out the dragon’s motives properly. “So what do you get when you all return to Purgatory. From what I’ve heard, it doesn’t seem like a good place to be in.”
Purgatory is our home, the dragon snorts out, derisive. And it is the cage for the Leviathans as well. The moment they return to Purgatory, they will be held under lock and key once more. That is how the real Purgatory works for them, rather than this false reality they have made.
“You seem to know a lot about this,” Jimmy remarks out.
I am-was-the gatekeeper of the Leviathans, it replies without missing a beat, and from there Jimmy supposes it’s not hard to figure out the rest of the dots from this revelation. He hears Dean sucking in a breath as the dragon elaborates more. It is a duty that has been charged to me as the current Alpha of the dragons.
Now Dean’s eyes are growing wide. “You’re the Alpha?” he asks, even though the answer is already there; Jimmy has to frown a little, because he’s starting to get a bit lost in this exchange. Just what were they going on with this ‘Alpha’ business? Did dragons and whatnot have packs going on or something?
The dragon dips its head once. Indeed, it answers simply.
Dean takes in another breath again and closes his eyes for a few moments; when he opens them again, he’s staring straight at the dragon and addressing him directly. “Alright, Scales, we’re going to play along with you for a bit. I’m going to keep watch, though. The moment you try to kill Jimmy or me-”
A snort escapes from the dragon. You mistrust me too much.
“With good reason, mind,” Dean quips back, although there’s no real venom in his voice. He steps closer towards the dragon now, casting a wary eye towards the ground far, far below. “…you sure you won’t drop us?”
I will not, is the simple response that it gives before the dragon turns its neck around to face back forward. If we are done talking, then we shall be off.
“Easier said than done,” the hunter mutters darkly, giving a glare to Jimmy after that due to the slightly amused smile that the man has on his face right now. “What’s so damned funny?”
“If I didn’t know better,” Jimmy starts slowly. “I’d think you’re terrified of flying.”
A vein throbs in Dean’s temple. “Shut up,” he snaps out loud and proceeds to settle himself in-between two of the dragon’s bigger spines. Once the both of them have settled, the hunter calls out to the beast. “Alright, Spikey, take us off to wherever those sons of bitches are.”
It will not be too far, the dragon replies before it beats its wings once and starts to glide in the air, the roar of the wind making even the beast’s voice near-impossible to hear as it speaks its next few words. And my name is not Scales or Spikey; I am known as Korialstrasz.
“I think I’ve heard that name somewhere before,” Jimmy can’t help but comment.
Humans tend to take note of the oddest things, is all that the dragon-Korialstrasz-says in response, beating its wings yet another time. Behind him, Dean lets out a snort that quickly turns into a yelp of surprise as Korialstrasz brings them up higher.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Dean starts, sounding both very unamused and highly displeased, but the dragon brings them up even higher and he pointedly goes quiet after that.
→ four: the living and the dead are watching you →
Three: Mendacious and delusive streets.
He's falling.
It's dark everywhere and he can't see, but he knows that he's falling. The wind howls in his ears, a phantom breeze rushing past him as he falls and falls and falls within the darkness. Even though he feels himself falling there's no way for him to see-there's no light, no shadow, no anything. There's only the sensation of him falling and falling and never stopping.
He tries to look at his hands, his legs, anything that would show his own form, but he can see nothing, can make out nothing. The ice-cold winds cut deep into him, slowly numbing away all sensation. A second, a minute, an hour passes, and soon he feels nothing at all even though he knows he should.
The darkness is the same behind his closed eyelids, but he can try to imagine otherwise and feel slightly comforted as a thought slowly comes to his mind.
Am I... Falling?
Is this what Falling felt like? To plunge down, never to stop and only keep on tumbling down to a certain end? It was so cold, so cold and painful and lonely and he was already so tired of it. The darkness overwhelms him, eating inside him relentlessly. He feels himself numbing over, both inside and out, barely noticing the wave of vertigo that washes over him before everything suddenly kick-starts itself and he feels himself Falling.
A surprised cry tears out from his throat as he Falls, the cold starting to cut into him once more as now he does feel the vertigo hitting him. His heart leaps up, threatening to jump out from his mouth as his senses lurch again and he can almost feel himself hitting the ground-
The world snaps back into light around him as Jimmy gasps and opens his eyes, an action he instantly regrets as the sunlight from above shines right into his eyes and Jimmy quickly shuts them back, feeling the corners starting to tear up. He feels something wet and moist under him, gentle pricks against his fingertips that easily give way as Jimmy clenches his fist to steady and then push himself back up. Jimmy quickly shakes away the mild sense of vertigo that washes over him momentarily, frowning as he lets his vision focus properly.
His vision slowly clears up, and Jimmy blinks as he makes out fields and trees and bushes, all of them clustering together in shades of greens and browns. Above him the sky is clear and bright, and in the distance he hears the sounds of children shouting and laughing. Jimmy slowly gets up on his feet, brushing off the soil and dirt that’s gotten onto his clothes-he realizes absently that he’s somehow in the old Castiel attire again-before he looks back up; the sound is louder now, closer, and Jimmy lets his curiosity lead him, following the noise. As he walks the scene starts to bring in more and more memories to him, a strong sense of déjà vu stirring within him as he approaches the source of the noise, and the feeling causes him to pause before a cluster of bushes, stopping as Jimmy wonders what exactly is going on right now.
“-I am not here to judge you, Dean.”
Jimmy instantly freezes, blood turning ice cold as the familiarity of that voice grips him tight. Without even thinking he goes through the bushes, bursting through it to nearly collide with the back of a bench-a bench that has Dean Winchester sitting on one end, and on the end of another bench sits Castiel. The old Castiel, the Castiel who had been living inside Jimmy’s body and still is, even until now. He remembers this moment as clear as day, the moment when Castiel had said something that Jimmy had not expected him to-something that just as it made Dean start to trust him, also made Jimmy begin to understand him properly.
(He also remembered how, one week later after a battle in Australia, he had asked Castiel if what he said to Dean was true. Castiel had hesitated, but in the end he had said the magic word. He had said ‘yes’, and from there his fate was sealed.)
The man stays silent as he watches the conversation play out between Dean and Castiel, watching the two speak; it’s certainly different, being able to see this from the outside rather than watching all of this through his own eyes. From here he can see the way Dean’s eyes occasionally flick towards Castiel, green eyes focusing on him as if the angel is a puzzle to try and solve, a mystery to figure out and disassemble. Dean Winchester is always good at reading people when he needs to, and Jimmy knows now that right here and now is when Dean finally figures that Castiel is somebody, a being who he can at least put his faith in, if necessary. This is where their tentative relationship had begun, and Jimmy had been the one and only witness to it.
He sees Castiel take in a breath, eyes closing momentarily before he opens them back and speaks again, voice quiet. “Can I tell you something if you promise not to tell another soul?”
Jimmy sees Dean’s visible hesitation, the uncertainty in his eyes, but he also sees the acceptance and the tentative trust that the hunter is willing to extend out to the angel, and so he agrees. “Okay,” he says, properly looking at Castiel now with his green eyes.
So Castiel tells him-tells them-that he’s not a hammer, that he’s not just a mere tool under Heaven’s command. He tells them about his worries and his insecurities, about the things he wishes Dean could understand just as much as he does himself. Jimmy sees the whirlwind of emotions that’s painted on Castiel’s face, and now he wonders just when it is that the angel truly did start to care so much for Dean. Did the moment happen now, or at the beginning, or later? Maybe he might never really know the answer.
He watches the way Dean stares at the spot where Castiel had just been moments earlier and sees the sympathetic expression that’s on Dean’s face, only slightly lessened by the worrying frown crossing his face. The children continue to play and shout in the playground, oblivious as to what had just happened, and unknowing of how their lives had just been saved the night before, only to place them ever closer towards the end; an end that somehow never happened. But in its place, perhaps something far worse had happened.
Something that I don’t even know how to handle, Jimmy thinks grimly to himself as Dean stands up from his seat at the bench and starts to walk away. He watches the hunter leaving, eyes trailing after the other only to blink in surprise when suddenly the figure of Dean starts to fade without warning, growing blurry around the edges. Alarmed with this unexpected development, the man starts to chase after the disappearing hunter, the call coming out from his throat before he can help himself. “Dean-”
“-Dean.”
Jimmy stumbles on his feet, just barely managing to keep his balance at the sound of Castiel’s voice now suddenly coming from behind him. He stops and whirls around, eyes growing wide as now he sees the angel standing behind him. The sky itself suddenly has suddenly shifted from mid-morning to nightfall, and Jimmy hears the sound of crickets and flickering lights around him. The entire place has changed without warning, and as Jimmy darts his eyes around he feels yet another sense of déjà vu coming to him; he’s pretty certain that he’s been here, too.
There’s the sound of somebody moving from behind him now, and it clicks properly in Jimmy’s brain when he hears Dean’s half-snarl from behind, the impatience and rage of his voice bleeding through the single word he snaps out at the angel. “What?!”
Jimmy only gives himself a moment to glance towards Dean and then back at Castiel, who grants the hunter with a sideways look and explains himself cautiously. “You must understand why I can’t intercede. Prophets are very special; they’re protected.”
This had been the moment, Jimmy knew. This had been the moment when Castiel made his first decision to side with humanity and with Dean-a decision that had later caused him to be hunted down by the forces of Heaven. Or perhaps, this had been the moment when Castiel let himself choose, to make that decision to stick with humanity even though Heaven had no desire for humans to live on. This, in a sense, could be called the first real building block in the relationship between Castiel and Dean, the angel of Thursday and the Righteous Man.
The words between Castiel and Dean wash over Jimmy as the conversation plays out just as Jimmy remembers-he also remembers how, as Dean runs off to find Chuck Shurley and drag him over to where Sam is confronting Lilith, he had remarked to Castiel how Heaven would not like this. In response, Castiel only shrugs and repeats to him what the angel had told Dean. The thought makes Jimmy smile, just a bit; those had been some of the better days, before everything had crashed into a downward spiral.
As Dean vanishes into the distance so does the world itself as well, everything in his sight blurring and fading into darkness. The reprieve, however, is momentary at best, and everything around him starts to rumble and shake, wood and metal and everything clanking and banging into each other before suddenly his vision is filled with blinding white light as the high-pitched cry of an angel roars in his ears.
No, not an angel.
An archangel.
Jimmy raises his head, squinting through the growing light as he hears Castiel’s voice shouting next to him. “I’ll hold him off! I’ll hold them all off! Just stop Sam!” There’s only the fraction of a second where Jimmy manages to make out Dean standing at Castiel’s side before the angel claps him on the shoulder and the human vanishes, having sent him off to the covenant where Sam would be.
This had been his last moments-their last moments-the point when Castiel had fully made his decision to protect humanity and stick to it. For that decision they had died and perished, killed by the wrathful might of Raphael. In the seconds before they died, Castiel apologized to him for putting him through this, and Jimmy remembers very well what his answer had been. It was fun while it lasted.
Raphael’s voice nearly rises to unbearable levels as the light intensifies, blocking out everything in a brilliant white for a few moments before everything abruptly blacks out once more, darkness rushing back in from everywhere. Raphael’s cry cuts out without warning, leaving nothing but echoes of it ringing in his ears as silence settles around him. It’s quiet; too quiet, even, and Jimmy feels his heart beating none-too-gently in his chest, still trying to calm down after all the things that he’s seen. The air around him feels cold, colder as the moments pass, goosebumps already starting to rise on his skin even though he’s wearing the overcoat.
Jimmy raises his hands the best that he can and breathes into them, letting the hot burst of air warm his quickly numbing fingertips. It helps somewhat, although the cold does not stop and slowly Jimmy starts to see the wisps of his own breath, highlighted by the dim light that’s gradually filling in his vision. Jimmy drops his hands and blinks as the world reshapes itself around him, lights growing before they suddenly start to flicker and Jimmy now sees flashes of stained, half-smashed walls lining the murky, dusty corridor that he’s standing in. An acrid smell wafts into his nose, the scent making his eyes instantly water up as Jimmy winces and proceeds to pinch his nose to block out the smell the best he can and then glances around him. The walls are bare except for the jet-black stains that splash across the surface, and in other parts chunks of concrete seem to have been ripped out forcefully; above him lamps dangle and flicker dangerously, giving Jimmy just enough light to make out the shape of a door at the other end of the corridor.
Jimmy doesn’t really know what’s going on, but at the very least, the direction in which he needs to go in is clear. Jimmy holds his nose, making it a point to breathe through his mouth as he starts to walk, his shoes pounding loudly against the floor below him and the sound echoes in his ears. The lights continue to flicker, electricity buzzing constantly in the air as the bulbs swing around dangerously. Jimmy can’t help but feel a sense of dread swelling up within him with every step he takes closer towards the door at the end; he doesn’t even know where he is or how he exactly got here (considering the fact that Gabriel killed him). Still, if anything, there’s a high chance that Castiel-or the fake Castiel-is somehow involved in this, and since he’s here he might as well figure out what’s going on.
The smell lessens as he approaches the door, and it soon becomes bearable enough that Jimmy can drop his hand down and resume walking normally. Under the weak lighting Jimmy slowly makes out the form and shape of the door he’s walking towards; they’re double oaken doors-a strange sight, considering where he is-but they’re half-rotten and old, and there are gaping patches across the surface where the wood has been half-eaten. Similar black stains like the ones on the wall are smudged across some of the other uneaten parts of the door, and the black liquid still gleams when Jimmy leans in to examine it, looking as if it’s been freshly slapped on.
Leaning away, Jimmy slowly tilts his head to look at the strange black liquid; his eyes narrow as Jimmy cautiously examines it. It’s certainly quite unlike anything he’s ever known, and he can’t help be curious about it now that he’s seen it everywhere. The man slowly raises a hand, reaching out carefully with one finger in order to swipe a bit of it away from the door-
He stops when the sudden sound of shuffling feet come from the other side of the door, and in a moment of impulse Jimmy instantly shifts his hands to reach for the door handles instead, yanking at them to pull the doors wide open. He blinks when a rush of wind comes out to breeze across him, and in the next moment he hears a surprised voice addressing him-a voice that Jimmy knows well, even if the other person doesn’t.
“…Cas?”
Jimmy opens back his eyes, blinking as his eyes slowly adjust to the sight of the Green Room before him and the occupant inside-the occupant who is none other than Dean Winchester himself.
Dean narrows his green eyes after a moment of staring at Jimmy, realization clicking on his face as the hunter blinks and corrects himself. “Jimmy?”
“Yeah,” the man responds with a tentative smile, glad for the fact that he’s no longer alone in this wacky place-even if Dean’s sudden appearance here is a cause for concern. He glances around the room, recalling it from his memory along with the details that he notes before he looks back at the other. “What are you doing here?”
For some reason, the question makes Dean make a grimace and look vaguely uncomfortable. “Well, after Gabriel did his crazy thing and killed you-”
“I noticed,” Jimmy mutters out in a dark undertone.
Dean, at least, has the decency to pause and give Jimmy a sympathetic look there and then before continuing calmly. “You entered Cas through your soul or something, I think. Since you’re pretty much out of your body, you’re kind of technically dead one way or another.” There’s a pause, and then Dean snorts. “God knows how many times I’ve gone through it.”
“I have no idea if that is supposed to be reassuring in any matter,” Jimmy deadpans back flatly, and somehow his response only serves to make Dean stop for a moment and blink, surprise flashing on his face for a split second before mild amusement replaces it.
“Huh,” he starts, and the corners of his lip curl up slightly. “Now I know where Cas gets his sarcasm from.”
Jimmy rolls his eyes in return. “You still haven’t answered my question.”
“I’m getting there,” Dean retorts back, pushing himself off the chair he’d been sitting on ever since Jimmy had entered the room. “Currently you and Cas're pinned down with Gabriel's sword in the middle of the panic room. You being inside Cas now is like... the medicine or something putting the souls to a halt, so the Cas outside can't do anything while you're in here.” The hunter pauses then, thinking for a moment and frowning as he searches for the appropriate words to say with. “We gotta move fast, though; there's only so long your presence stops them, and when they start to fight back it’s not going to be easy getting out.”
Jimmy nods, acknowledging Dean's words and his highlight about the severity of the situation, but there is one thing that keeps sticking out at him. He turns to the other with a curious look, echoing pointedly. “We?”
Dean stares back. “Yeah,” he answers, sounding highly certain and wholly immovable. “We.”
Jimmy gulps, and stares in return as well. His heart is pounding again, beating dread and uncertainty into his blood. “What did you do, Dean?” he finally makes himself ask, even though a part of him doesn't want to hear the answer. If Gabriel had needed to kill him for this to happen, then Dean-
The hunter rolls his shoulders in a shrug. “Nothing big,” he replies nonchalantly. “I'm currently knocked out on the sofa, I think. Gabriel pulled some mojo on me or something to get me in here after I asked him to.”
“Gabriel-” Jimmy starts, stops, and then composes himself before starting again. “-but why?”
Dean only snorts out loud in response. “Somebody's gotta have your back, right? Going up against all the souls of Purgatory isn’t exactly a cakewalk, Jimmy.”
“I know,” he replies quietly. How could he not know? In the year he had with Castiel he has seen more than enough of the dark side of the world. Shapeshifters and vampires and werewolves and ghouls-a whole new world of monsters and beasts all laid out before his eyes. And now all these things were here, gathered together through death and ready to bare their fangs and claws to the world once more-and Jimmy now stands as the only thing between them and the outside. Hardly the most comforting thought in the world at all.
The hunter gives Jimmy a brief moment to reflect on his thoughts before he speaks again, this time in a way that's much more thoughtful. “Gabriel said that it was a good idea for me to come in here, anyway. I could make sure you're safe, and I can get to Cas too since I have, uh-” Dean pauses and hesitates, a strange gesture coming from the man. Jimmy, however, just waits patiently as Dean recollects himself and starts again. “I've got some... connection, I guess. Gabriel didn't really explain it to me.”
It doesn't take long for Jimmy to put two and two together though. “When Castiel pulled you out from Hell,” he says, gesturing towards the shoulder where he knew the seared hand print lay under the cloth. “He touched your soul with his Grace, and it left a mark. That mark links you two together.”
Jimmy's words make Dean pause, the hunter staring at him for a few moments before he makes a grunt and turns away. “Should've figured that you would know,” he mutters out, just loud enough so that Jimmy can hear it. Dean inclines his head slightly and adds on. “Did Cas tell you that?”
The man shakes his head. “Not really,” he admits, voice soft. “It's just... there.” Jimmy pauses then, the corner of his lips curling up slight before continuing. “Not hard to feel it when you're with an angel.”
Dean doesn't say anything to response, quickly turning his head away instead and finishes up quickly. “Yeah, so. To quote Cas, we've got a 'profound bond', and I used that to get in here. Although I got stuck inside here until you came along.” He stops to let out a sharp laugh, bitter and dark and dry. “Some help I am.”
“I appreciate it,” Jimmy quickly says, and it is true-Dean being around does help, and it makes Jimmy feel better; the hunter's experience and knowledge will play a good part in aiding Jimmy, and considering the odds now stacked against them, Jimmy knows that they're going to need all the help he can get. It's two of them against the entirety of Purgatory now, and there's no way something like this is going to be easy.
Dean glances towards the door now, eyes and expression hardening as he clenches his jaw and gazes at whatever would lie beyond the double oaken doors that stand before the two of them. “Alright,” he starts, letting out a breath through his nose. “Let's go.”
The doors open back to the corridor that Jimmy had been in earlier, except now there's now a door at the other end of the hallway and there are also grills lining at the top and Jimmy can see moonlight streaming in through the bars and making the place just a bit brighter.
Dean steps up from behind him, green eyes blinking as the hunter focuses on their new-old surroundings. “Nice place,” he remarks not too dryly, a grim smile etched onto his features. “You know the way?”
“There's only one way,” Jimmy points back out quickly and proceeds to start walking, not even bothering to wait for whatever Dean's response is. A few moments pass before another set of footsteps join his, and at the corner of his eye he sees the hunter walking beside him. The look on Dean's face is not exactly comforting, but the determination is something of a promise, perhaps, a desire to go forward and do what he intends to do here. What they both intend to accomplish.
The two of them walk in silence until they reach the door on the end. It’s a simple door this time, carved out of metal that's now rusty and old, stained with patches of black. Like before, the black stains shine unnaturally, gleaming oddly under the lights as Dean and Jimmy come close to it. They pause before the door, staring at it for a few moments before Jimmy slowly starts to reach out for the handle.
“Whoa, hold on there,” Dean cuts in suddenly, grabbing Jimmy’s wrist to stop him from reaching the door. Annoyed, Jimmy turns towards Dean with every intention to voice out his irritation, but stops when he sees the concerned look that’s smacked across the hunter’s face. Jimmy remains silent, frowning slightly as he watches Dean glance at the door for a moment and worries his bottom lip rather thoroughly. “You’re just going to open it?” he finally asks, and it’s hard to not hear the concern in his voice.
Jimmy turns back to the door and looks at it himself for a second before using his other hand to reach for the handle. “Not much else we can do at this point,” he states plainly, and proceeds to wrap his fingers around the handle before pulling the door open. Dean makes a sound and drops Jimmy’s wrist, stepping back as Jimmy yanks the door open with a torturous squeal of old metal hinges. Both men hold their breath as light rushes into the confines of the room, revealing a set of stairs that look as if they had been carved out of stone.
Dean lets out the breath he had been holding, giving the stairs a look and then directing his gaze towards Jimmy, who looks back at him. “Time to go up, I guess.”
Jimmy puts on a grim smile and turns back to the stairs that greet him in the room, looking at it himself before he sighs out loud and nods in agreement. “Let’s see where they lead to.”
“I’ll take the lead,” the hunter quickly says once their decision’s been made, brushing past Jimmy before the man can say otherwise and starting his way up the stairs. Without wasting another moment Jimmy swiftly follows behind, leaving the corridor behind him as he steps into the room and up the stairs, shoes clicking against the stone surface. The two of them take a few steps up before the squeal of metal suddenly cries out behind them, and they turn around just in time to see the metal door slamming shut, booming with a resounding silence.
Jimmy turns back to Dean, whose gaze is still fixed onto the now-closed metal door. A moment passes, and then two, and Dean’s flying down the stairs and grabbing the handle, cursing loudly as it refuses to budge under his strength.
“Son of a bitch,” he snarls out, turning back to Jimmy and scowling at him. “What’re you waiting for? Come down and help me here, damnit!”
Dean’s shout snaps him back into reality, and Jimmy gives a quick nod before he goes back to the door and attempts to help the hunter open the door. Just as he had suspected though, the door stays shut, unyielding. After about a minute or so of attempting to open it Dean has to concede defeat-although he does it most unwillingly, snarling again as he gives it a not-too gentle kick that causes the entire door to vibrate.
“Fuck,” he swears once more, glaring harshly. Jimmy absently notices that his fists have clenched up, although Dean soon relaxes them and sucks in a breath to calm himself down. The hunter opens his eyes and turns to the stairs, Jimmy following his gaze as the two of them look up and up at the seemingly never-ending flight of stairs that now stands before them, stretching onwards to something almost like eternity.
The hunter lets out another sigh. “One way ride,” he mutters to himself, starting to move again after that. Without much of a choice in the matter Jimmy follows right behind, the sounds of their pounding feet and breathing being the only thing that breaks through the silence.
Time passes by as they climb, although Jimmy has no idea how long it has been since they’ve started to climb up the staircase. It could have been just seconds or minutes or perhaps hours had already passed, but there is no way of really telling. The moments tick by unnoticed, time itself seeming to drag on and on as the two of them push their way up the stairs with no end in sight. They don’t seem to be able to get closer to the top at all, and the bottom is nothing but a black void, so high up they are now.
For all the stamina that Dean has even the hunter needs to stop eventually, chest heaving as he struggles to get his breath back. Jimmy has to stop himself from collapsing onto the ground, utterly tired and exhausted from all of the climbing that they had done in the last only God knew how long time they had. He manages to settle on doubling over and rests his palms on one of the upper steps before him, kneeling down as Jimmy tries to collect himself back together. Too much. This was seriously too much, and Jimmy didn’t know if he could even take any more.
Dean manages to recover quickly, however, and Jimmy hears the hunter’s breaths soon slowing down into something manageable. Footsteps come down towards him after a pause, and then there’s a hand roughly grabbing him around his bicep and before Jimmy can register anything else, Dean’s hauling him up and tugs one arm over his shoulder, holding him in place by the wrist as the hunter’s other arm slips around his waist and supports him from there.
“No stopping here, Jimmy,” he hears Dean wheeze out beside him, words forced out in-between breathless pants as the man straightens himself properly. “I know we’re almost there.”
Jimmy can only make himself nod and attempt to steady himself better despite wobbly knees, still panting harshly as sweat drips off his chin and from the tip of his nose. They splash down onto the steps as Dean starts to move again, shouldering Jimmy along with him as the two men continue to push their way up the steps, going up foot by foot slowly and carefully. They are closer now, Jimmy realizes; the light is now brighter, closer to them, and the darkness slowly disappears as the light swallows up the shadows behind them.
The light seems to close in on them with each step they take, blotting out the shadows and filling everything in their senses with light. Jimmy can’t help but shut his eyes as they take the last few steps up the staircase, climbing right into the light and feeling an intense heat burning all around him like a feverish heat. He hears Dean’s own gasp beside him, surprised and taken aback, and then he hears and feels the displacement of air before the light fades out against his eyelids. After that, Jimmy hears nothing else but silence.
There’s a beat, and then two.
“What the hell,” Dean’s voice suddenly breathes out in disbelief beside him, and Jimmy finally allows himself to open his eyes and stare at the sight before him.
It was-Jimmy didn’t know what to say, actually, if only because there was nothing he could say to what now stretched before his eyes. Around them giant cliffs stretch without end, encircling their surroundings and beyond and holding it all like the palm of a hand. Tufts of mist rolls across the surface, running from the stone platform they are standing on and flowing everywhere, coating the entire place like a cool, mystical blanket. In the distance Jimmy sees a giant lake that glitters unnaturally, pillars of ice rising up from the surface and connecting the land to the twilight skies that span above them that are stained with patches of varying colours that shift in every angle, almost like an oil slick. In the absolute centre of his vision, a blank, white circle stands there, darkness and shadow oozing from the edges.
Jimmy stares at the sky for a moment more before he brings his gaze down, looking below the platform that he and Dean are standing on to see the ground spreading out below them. He sees reds and oranges and browns burning into his eyes, the land below them glowing as if it’s on fire. Mist surrounds the edge where the land edges at the cliff bases, flowing around like a river that never stops or fades.
Beside him Dean sucks in a deep breath and proceeds to let it out, green eyes still transfixed onto the place that rolls out before their eyes, a strange sort of deadly beauty which now stands before them. The land continues to glow uneasily below them, while the skies above them flash and rumble as the roar of thunder and lightning echoes from the distance, the sound prompting Dean right back into reality.
“Right,” he starts, breathing loudly again, and swivelling his gaze towards Jimmy. “You feeling any better now?”
Jimmy gives himself a few seconds to figure out his own stamina and condition before he nods an affirmation. “As well as I can be,” he croaks back, voice somewhat dry; he’s lost a ton of water in his system from all the sweat that’s pouring out from him. “Having some water would be great, though.”
Dean only rolls his eyes. “You’re a soul, dude,” he intones back pointedly. “You don’t need anything.”
“It’d still be nice,” Jimmy retorts back, although his face heats up momentarily due to embarrassment. Of course he’s a soul-how could he forget? The man silently rebukes himself for his forgetfulness while he pulls himself away from Dean, steadying on his own two feet once more and casting a glance at the scenery that stretches out before them, strange and magical and utterly unnatural. It’s hard to believe that this is all inside Castiel, to be honest.
Dean rolls his shoulders and squints towards the strange blank circle at the middle of the sky, trying to take a gander at it. “I don’t know what the hell’s up with this place, but I’m going to bet that Cas is somewhere in here.” Dean says that with conviction and with absolutely certainty, and Jimmy wonders for a moment if the hunter’s words are meant for him or for himself instead. It almost feels that way to him.
“Well,” Jimmy starts as he walks cautiously. “First thing we need to do is to get down from here.” He stops at the edge of the platform, making sure that his feet aren’t too close to the ends as he cranes his head forward and looks down. They’re high up, way high up, and there’s no way for them to go down besides the stairs they came up from-and Jimmy’s pretty sure that really isn’t going to work.
The hunter follows him from behind, although unlike Jimmy he doesn’t really dare to look down and seems to turn slightly green instead. “I hate this,” he hears the other man muttering. “Why are we so friggin’ high up anyway?”
Jimmy turns his gaze away from the ground to glance back at Dean. “I’d like to know that myself,” he states back in turn, walking away from the edge and looks around him. The platform that they’re standing on is a simple affair, as far as Jimmy can tell-it’s a circular one, with the edges worn with age and looking rather slippery as well. On the surface of the platform a messy scrawl stretches across in jet black, spreading around like a crackling spider web. It’s almost gibberish to Jimmy, to be honest, up until he notices one of the scrawls and the image clicks in his mind.
“Dean,” he starts, ensuring that he has the hunter’s attention as he gestures towards the symbol he recognized. “I think these are in Enochian.”
Dean’s eyes instantly widen at the words. “Son of a bitch,” he swears out loud, green eyes now darting across all the Enochian symbols that dot across the surface. “Sam would be really helpful here right now. I’m not good at remembering this shit.”
“I can make out some of them,” Jimmy offers helpfully as he looks at the symbol he’s just pointed to and translates it. “That one means ‘here’, I think.”
Dean nods in acknowledgement, eyes roving across the symbols still as he tries to match each one with what he can recall. “This one’s ‘stand’-”
“’Ruler’, here,” Jimmy quickly points out the next one he manages to figure out.
Time passes as the two men attempt to decode every one of the symbols they can make out, piecing the letters and words together bit by bit. At times Jimmy has to pause and rack his brain for whatever he recalls from his year with Castiel, and likewise Dean attempts to remember whatever he’s managed to memorize from the books he’s pursued. There’s no telling how long it takes for them to finally translate everything, but once they done Jimmy strings the words together, and he feels dread opening up in his stomach as he says it aloud. “Here stands the throne of the Leviathans, the first beast before man and angel, the ruler of Purgatory.”
Dean sucks in a breath once more, and a very worried expression appears on his face which the hunter fails to hide properly. “Shit,” he swears, and Jimmy can very well emphasize with that remark. The first beast before man and angel-what chance did Castiel have against something as powerful as that? Time now ran all the shorter, and more than ever it was imperative that they had to find the angel.
Still, horrifying discovery aside, there is still the matter at hand-going down the throne. “Now what do we do?”
The hunter grimaces. “Beats me,” he mutters darkly, giving the Enochian script at their feet a stern glare. “I’d been hoping that we’d figure out a way with this, but-”
Dean cuts himself short abruptly and ducks to the side, just in time before a fireball hurls past where the man had been seconds ago. Jimmy stumbles back in surprise, eyes wide as he feet remain rooted to the ground out of shock. Dean curses loudly again, darting towards Jimmy and pulls him to the ground just as another fireball flies over their heads. The heat of the fireball is so close that Jimmy swears he can feel his scalp starting to burn.
“I don’t think I need to tell you this, but we’ve got company,” Dean says as Jimmy sees the silhouettes of a single, massively winged creature heading towards them, tiny flickers of gold and orange visible from its mouth that soon become larger as the dragon throws yet another fireball towards them. Both Dean and Jimmy manage to evade that just in time, although the hunter’s now swearing up a storm as the dragon fly closer towards where they are.
“Fuck,” he curses, snarling through his teeth. “How the fuck are we supposed to defend ourselves against a dragon? These fuckers are hard enough out there, much less here.”
Jimmy tries to calm himself down, looking at the dragon and then glancing at the platform they’re on. “It shouldn’t be able to land where we are,” he attempts to hazard a guess. “There’s not enough space.”
“It can turn human,” Dean says in return, lips pursed as his eyes narrow. “That doesn’t make things any easier, though. It still breathes fire and shit.”
Not comforting at all. The sound of the dragon’s wing beats were audible now, starting to thunder in his ears as the beast approaches ever closer to the platform. He looks around, trying to find something-anything-that could help them in this situation, but aside from the Enochian emblazoned onto the platform the place’s as clean as a whistle. There wasn’t anything at all that could help them.
Dean curses loudly again before he reaches for Jimmy, grabbing him and dragging the man away as the two men throw themselves to the side as the dragon make a diving swoop, talons stretching out in a bid to grab hold of either of them. Jimmy couldn’t help but stare a bit as the dragon flew past them, its deadly beauty truly a sight to behold. Its scales burned just like fire itself, eternally blazing and shifting as the beast roared and twist around, the red-orange-yellow-gold shifting along with its actions. Its eyes flared a fiery red, glowing as hot as heated metal as a stream of smoke puffed out from its nostrils.
Trespassers, Jimmy hears the fierce, dangerous mental snarl resounding in his head, and Dean barely has a moment to react to that before the dragon speaks again. How dare you stand upon the throne of the first beasts?
“You mean the Leviathans?” Jimmy asks before Dean can say anything in response, even though he senses the hunter glaring at him sharply since he is, well, talking to a dragon. Jimmy thinks he’s pretty dumb for doing this too, but he doesn’t exactly have any other choice in the matter at the moment. It’s either this or being eaten, and Jimmy would rather pick the option that has him staying alive.
The dragon seems to look vaguely unimpressed by the question, but it snorts again and responds-this time with not as much hostility. Yes.
Unfortunately, this time Dean manages to speak up before Jimmy can cut in. “What problem do you have, anyway? Couldn’t you just talk to us first before tossing flaming giant fireballs at us?”
Jimmy winces a little at the lack of tact coming from the hunter, but somehow the beast only makes an amused sort of snort and answers Dean’s question. Nobody has ever stepped foot upon the Leviathans’ throne before, not until now. They are the first beasts, the rulers of Purgatory. A pause, and then the dragon add on almost silently. Tyrannical rulers.
Both Jimmy and Dean’s eyebrows rise then, and the two men glance at each other for a moment in silent understanding. Jimmy is the one who asks the question. “What do you mean by that?”
The Leviathans were cast into this place by their creator, the same creator who made Purgatory as it is, the dragon starts to explain, the silence in between its words broken only by the beating of its giant wings. They were once locked and sealed up in Purgatory, never to be touched by man, angel or beast. But when the door to Purgatory was forced open, the chaos allowed the Leviathans to escape. Right here the dragon snorts loudly, shaking its head in a very human-like manner. Now in here they rule over us all and oppressing us under their claws while they control the one who had taken all of us in, shaping this reality to their means.
Realization clicks in both men there and then. “They’ve got Cas,” he hears Dean mutter out beside him, and it’s impossible to ignore the flare of something that swells with Dean’s words.
The dragon blinks once. The angel of Thursday, Castiel, it confirms, and now a curious look crosses its eyes as the dragon looks between the two humans. Both of you have been touched by the angel.
“Long story,” Dean quickly says in return.
Jimmy decides it’s most likely time to change the topic of this impromptu talk. “We’ve heard that Castiel is still around. Can you take us to him?” he asks.
There’s a pause as the dragon looks between the two humans once more. What are your intentions? It eventually asks after a few moments.
Best to just give the truth and make things easier for all of them. “We want to take him out and banish the remaining souls back into Purgatory,” Jimmy replies, honest and straightforward and pointedly ignoring Dean’s dark murmur of ‘nice going there’.
The dragon blinks once at the answer before it inclines its head and gazes at Jimmy directly. How will you contain the angel? Without the vessel, the angel is but insubstantial Grace that humans cannot touch.
“I’ll take him into me,” Jimmy blurts out the answer before he can take it back, and even Dean has to pause when he hears the words coming out. Likewise, the dragon seems to be just about as surprised at the hunter himself is, but Jimmy pushes on before either of them can say anything to intercept him. “I’m his original vessel, and I’m saturated with his Grace, or something. If anybody can take him back, it’s me.”
“Jimmy-” Dean starts warningly, but the dragon cuts in from there.
You make a valid point, it replies simply, giant tail swishing casually behind. Another moment passes, and then: And you are certain you will return all of us back to Purgatory?
He nods, answering without fail. “Yes.”
The dragon nods back, seemingly satisfied with the answer. Then I will bring you to where the Leviathans stand now, it says, and then it twists itself around so that the dragon now presents its back to them where vicious spikes burst out from various points along its spine. Both Dean and Jimmy step back as the dragon slowly hovers itself to the edge of the platform, close enough so that the two men can climb onto its back. Climb on; I will fly you there, and the ground is a long way down.
Jimmy doesn’t hesitate and starts making his way towards the dragon. Dean, on the other hand, hardly looks convinced and pointedly crosses his arms across his chest, scowling. “How do we even know if we can trust you? You seem awfully willing to go against your boss.”
The dragon twists its elongated neck around so that it can properly face the hunter. Before the Leviathans took over there was the Mother, and it was the Mother who we loved and cherished, not the first beasts. She was the one who took care of us and protected us, not the first beasts. They only know how to crush and to eat, and not to care. All of us have suffered under their power. It’s eyes flare, and the beast adds darkly. Though the Mother is gone, we will not submit ourselves to a callous ruler like the Leviathans, even though they are indestructible; to do so would be an insult to the Mother’s memory.
“So it’s like a mutiny, huh,” Dean mutters back, sounding just a little impressed-but not convinced. The hunter eyes the dragon cautiously, attempting to figure out the dragon’s motives properly. “So what do you get when you all return to Purgatory. From what I’ve heard, it doesn’t seem like a good place to be in.”
Purgatory is our home, the dragon snorts out, derisive. And it is the cage for the Leviathans as well. The moment they return to Purgatory, they will be held under lock and key once more. That is how the real Purgatory works for them, rather than this false reality they have made.
“You seem to know a lot about this,” Jimmy remarks out.
I am-was-the gatekeeper of the Leviathans, it replies without missing a beat, and from there Jimmy supposes it’s not hard to figure out the rest of the dots from this revelation. He hears Dean sucking in a breath as the dragon elaborates more. It is a duty that has been charged to me as the current Alpha of the dragons.
Now Dean’s eyes are growing wide. “You’re the Alpha?” he asks, even though the answer is already there; Jimmy has to frown a little, because he’s starting to get a bit lost in this exchange. Just what were they going on with this ‘Alpha’ business? Did dragons and whatnot have packs going on or something?
The dragon dips its head once. Indeed, it answers simply.
Dean takes in another breath again and closes his eyes for a few moments; when he opens them again, he’s staring straight at the dragon and addressing him directly. “Alright, Scales, we’re going to play along with you for a bit. I’m going to keep watch, though. The moment you try to kill Jimmy or me-”
A snort escapes from the dragon. You mistrust me too much.
“With good reason, mind,” Dean quips back, although there’s no real venom in his voice. He steps closer towards the dragon now, casting a wary eye towards the ground far, far below. “…you sure you won’t drop us?”
I will not, is the simple response that it gives before the dragon turns its neck around to face back forward. If we are done talking, then we shall be off.
“Easier said than done,” the hunter mutters darkly, giving a glare to Jimmy after that due to the slightly amused smile that the man has on his face right now. “What’s so damned funny?”
“If I didn’t know better,” Jimmy starts slowly. “I’d think you’re terrified of flying.”
A vein throbs in Dean’s temple. “Shut up,” he snaps out loud and proceeds to settle himself in-between two of the dragon’s bigger spines. Once the both of them have settled, the hunter calls out to the beast. “Alright, Spikey, take us off to wherever those sons of bitches are.”
It will not be too far, the dragon replies before it beats its wings once and starts to glide in the air, the roar of the wind making even the beast’s voice near-impossible to hear as it speaks its next few words. And my name is not Scales or Spikey; I am known as Korialstrasz.
“I think I’ve heard that name somewhere before,” Jimmy can’t help but comment.
Humans tend to take note of the oddest things, is all that the dragon-Korialstrasz-says in response, beating its wings yet another time. Behind him, Dean lets out a snort that quickly turns into a yelp of surprise as Korialstrasz brings them up higher.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Dean starts, sounding both very unamused and highly displeased, but the dragon brings them up even higher and he pointedly goes quiet after that.
→ four: the living and the dead are watching you →